


prima materia

by archaeologies



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: M/M, MAJOR 5DS SPOILERS, azship, azshipping, but it's what yliaster means to antinomy, endgame 5ds spoilers, i've been working on a big piece, implied toolshipping, it's just a fic abt what all the members of yliaster mean to z-one, mentions of character deaths but nothing described, so if you liked this maybe stick around !, that's kind of like this, yliaster, z-one centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-29 23:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12095781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archaeologies/pseuds/archaeologies
Summary: and it is called chaos; yliaster is the first chaos that lies within all things.





	1. iliaster primus

**Author's Note:**

> for sunie

 

 **paradox** ****  
_noun_ **  
** a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.

 

* * *

It’s hard to find that grin, Z-one concludes. He remembers it, he thinks; a smug look of confidence glared down a straight nose, between eyes that gleam and swirl in ambers and olives and golds. Paradox’s hair was long, wasn’t it? Didn’t it coil in ringlets down their back? Did Z-one see it like that? Or did Z-one see it limp and heavy, tied back to keep the grit out of their face, laden with dirt and debris?

Z-one thinks, Paradox would have liked to have take pride in their appearance. They always carried themself with the proper airs and graces, and he notes that, had Paradox been born in the right time, in a better time, they would have adorned themself in silks and smiles and basked in admiration - rightly deserved admiration, Z-one is sure.

Paradox had tended to bask, hadn’t they? In the brief moments that the glare from the sun was not agony, eyes closed, slender neck tilted upwards, their hood tumbling down, their mouth trembling, their gun at their side.

Antinomy is always business. “Keep moving,” he says, and Paradox holds one finger up to him, a silencing motion. Antinomy complies, of course, but marches on nevertheless.

“Can you hear it?” Paradox asks, eyes still closed, eyelids quivering as they hold them shut. “No machines. No guns. No screaming.”

“There is no one left to scream,” Z-one chokes out, his own vision shaking now too, though his is cloudy with regret and bitterness and the burden of knowing how greatly he has failed, and how many he has let down.

Paradox flaps their arms outwards. The meagre light filters through that filthy blonde hair, and for a moment, it shines gold. They stretch their entire body, all the way down to their fingertips, like they are catching this soft sunlight - the softest sunlight Z-one can remember seeing in what feels like eons - and sigh. “Think bigger,” they say, and there’s an almost competitive pride to their tone, like they are not only relishing the light, but also revelling in knowing things Z-one does not, in dreaming in ways even Z-one cannot. “Or rather... Gentler. Can’t you almost imagine that things are the way they were before?”

Metal sits stubbornly on the side of Z-one’s face, biting into his cheek, lining his teeth. He blinks the one eye that still can, and the words rust in his mouth as he responds, “No.”

In the end, he can’t get that smile right, so he stops trying. This Paradox is an empty doll, who looks at him with beady, bored eyes, and a solemn frown. Z-one sees little of his former friend in the sallow youth who leans on mechanical legs, tense, against the D-Wheel they worked so hard on for them, but he recognises that furrowed brow, that subtle lip bite as the corners of their mouth tug downwards - Z-one recognises Paradox’s despair. He recognises he has carved it into stone, and made himself a puppet from his friend’s misery.


	2. iliaster secundus

 

**antinomy** **  
** _ noun _ **  
** a contradiction between two beliefs or conclusions that are in themselves reasonable; a paradox.

 

* * *

This one is the hardest; both to mold and bring to life, and to say goodbye to. They have been together the longest, after all. 

Antinomy’s hands were not made to fit into Z-one’s, but as he works them together, as he lovingly attaches wire ligament to metal frame, as he constructs skeletons from scrap, nerves from coil and chemical, he begins to find himself suspecting that, perhaps, this time, they can be. 

This Antinomy is not his Antinomy, however, he reminds himself sternly, both in terms of his mission, and in terms of how his heart is cold steel, a motor, an engine, and nothing more. It does not love him. It cannot. It’s a machine. 

It has to only be a machine, some part of him thinks, flaring up protectively, with concern, because this Antinomy has been programmed to help someone other than him. To let someone other than him grow, and learn, and trust. 

Z-one does not anticipate the events that befall him. He has never heard the name “Bruno” - Antinomy had whispered his birthname into Z-one’s ear once, while kissing down his neck, and it was not that - but he supposes he cannot fault Fudo Yusei for falling for the Antinomy who calls himself that. After all, had Fudo Yusei not already fallen for Antinomy once before? When Z-one had? 

Had Fudo Yusei not already kissed every inch of Antinomy’s body? Had they not already opened up to each other in the most impossibly perfect ways? Had Fudo Yusei not already ran his scarred hands through Antinomy’s hair, rested his head in Antinomy’s shoulder, and promised until the breath left his body that he loved Antinomy with all he had? 

Did he not do all that when Z-one did? 

It infuriates him, that Fudo Yusei cannot tell that Antinomy’s flesh is synthetic, because Z-one had not been able to convince himself it was real. It was too soft. Too new. Antinomy’s was weathered and sun-dried - and it had grown tired and lose and wrinkled at the end. It had felt like paper stracted over sagging bones when Z-one had held his hand and let him go. 

Z-one knows that Fudo Yusei clings to the other Antinomy, and wishes he had gripped tighter. 


	3. iliaster tertius

 

**aporia** **  
** _ noun _ **_  
_ ** a n irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction in a text, arg ument, or theory. 

 

* * *

By the time Aporia leaves him, Z-one has become an expert in crafting despair. Which he supposes is fitting, in many ways, since Aporia knew it, needed it, embodied it, better than any of them ever could. 

Aporia is not in Z-one’s life as long as the others are; in fact, when they find them, Aporia is one heartbreak away from death. They have not aged like the rest of them have - there is not grace to their movements, only pain. Their hands are gnarled and twisted, and struggle to grip and hold, and they cannot stand for long. 

But they tell such magnificent stories, stories laden with a love Z-one had long since thought forgotten, and their voice is gentle but firm, wise and yet naive. Aporia is more complicated than any of them could have ever thought themselves; Aporia is three and one, youth and antiquity, the future, the past, the present. Aporia feels continuous, and yet, Z-one does not meet Aporia until they are nearing their end. 

This world had managed to hold out one last cruelty for him, he supposes. 

Even on exhausted knees, even with their shoulders hunched, Aporia stands taller than the rest of them. Z-one thinks it’s only fair that they continue to. Z-one works softly, delicately, to breathe life into Aporia’s inner termoil, into their loss, their grief, their loneliness. And then, Z-one realises how wrong it is for Aporia to be alone. 

Even when they thought they were the last man on Earth, Aporia was never alone. 

They stand, a trinity of rage, of desolation, and they are sent the furthest back. They are sent to shape humanity, to intervene where they can, to twist and bend doomed timelines back onto the path Z-one has set for them. They are sent back together, and they bicker the whole time like they don’t remember how they have suffered, how they have hurt, how they have grown, how their souls are intertwined into a singular strife, a singular purpose, and they look upon Z-one now as if he were god, and not the foul entity who split them, who forced them to fight again, even though Aporia was so tired. 

Z-one reminds himself as they fuel the circuit with infights and teasing, that Aporia asked for this, asked to be used like this, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling sick with himself when Placido’s torso comes back to him, uncoiling and unraveling, spitting sparks where there should be blood, blowing fuses where it should be pulsing with life - a gift from Fudo Yusei, the same Fudo Yusei he once admired, the same Fudo Yusei he once believed would save this future. 

No one is coming to save him, Z-one thinks. No one is coming to his aid the way he is coming to Aporia’s, by repairing them, by reminding them of the power that lies in their harmony, their unison, their coexistence. 

Z-one has always known this is his fight. He just didn’t anticipate to feel quite this alone when he finally steps onto the battlefield. 


	4. iliaster quartus

 

**contradiction**   
_ noun _ _   
_ a situation in which inconsistent elements are present

 

* * *

Z-one is not a soldier, nor has he ever been particularly strong (in anything other than his convictions). Fudo Yusei is not a soldier either; most importantly, Fudo Yusei is not a hero. There is no confidence in his actions, and he blurts his tactics, his strategy, his thoughts, haphazardly as if he cannot help it, as if he cannot contain the passion that he fights with, as if he cannot convey his determination with his words alone. 

It does not bother Z-one that he talks through his plans, that he discusses how he will upstage him - Z-one knows every thought Fudo Yusei has before he has it. Z-one has known Fudo Yusei’s thoughts for an eternity. 

Fudo Yusei has one thing that Z-one does not. Fudo Yusei has people cheering his name. Fudo Yusei has people waiting for him. 

Had Z-one had a name, he shed it, long ago, in favour of Yusei’s. He shed that name too, leaving himself a raw, exposed skeleton, in desperate need of a carapace to hide within, to protect himself in, to keep his fleshy back propped up, and his tired neck pointed towards the future, and his weary head, which teeters on his brittle, weak, bones, firmly facing outwards, towards his objectives, his ideals. 

But weren’t there people who had cheered for him too? Who had believed in him? Who had loved him? Weren’t there people who had opened the world, that broken, burning world, up for him, and guided him through it? Hands wrapped around hands, around waists, lips on chapped, dusty lips. Eyes that had had their fill of death, of destruction, looking once more with adoration, with kindness, with hope. 

Hadn’t he had that, once? Hope? 


	5. prima materia

 

**Yliaster** **  
** _ in alchemy;  _ _   
_ the first body (similar to the  _ prima materia _ ), a clod containing all the chaos, all the waters, all minerals, all herbs, all stones, all gems - all elements

 

* * *

It takes him a long time - too long a time - but he finally joins them, and they finally know peace. 

They find that peace together. 

 


End file.
